Crazy Ideas Page
This is a page for whatever insane innovations the players come up with. Requests - A page where players can request information. POSSIBLE PLAUSIBLE UNWORKABLE Just remember that possible doesn't mean beneficial. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 21:39, September 15, 2015 (UTC) Torpedoes and Munitions Laser head missile (Plausible) Ever read the honorverse? Yeah, that thing. I've been thinking about this. I always wondered about the efficiency of nuke pumped lasers vs nuke pumped plasma weapons. The most famous example of the latter would probably be the GP-02's nuclear bazooka. The Shallans once used nuke pumped plasma weapons similar to the nuclear shaped charge of the "Casaba Howitzer." The device would be set off within a magnetic containment field and directed at the enemy. They couldn't build fusion torch based plasma weapons at the time because it would have meant less available engines for their ships. While those weapons were discontinued it's not unreasonable to assume that they could have continued to research applications. Thoughts? ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 23:19, July 16, 2015 (UTC) ''-Given the size of SP/Regular torpedoes I've always figured they always were some form of shaped nuclear charge, especially given how effective a single few SP warheads can be. It's not unreasonable to think they've always been like this given how well shaped nuclear charges work (directing 90%(!) of the energy in a blast) and the age of the technology which dates all the way back to the 1960s. (Anon)'' ''-Torpedoes are in effect modified shaped charges.'' Directing a blast into a focused point at a range of meters or exploding inside a vessel is a far cry from being intentionally set off many kilometers away and directing a beam at a target from there. I'm wondering which can be more efficient from hundreds of kilometers away if using a nuclear or fusion detonation for a power source: a laser or plasma. '' ''I'm also trying to justify continued development of such weapons by the Shallans or if it would have been dumped.ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 01:07, July 17, 2015 (UTC) ''-Oh, I see. Bomb pumped lasers are very inefficient, on the order of only around 3 or 4 percent nuclear energy converted to 'useful' energy. Combined with the fact that it's been mentioned several times that modern shielding is highly effective against lasers, I can't see them being pursued beyond initial curiosities. Many problems plague the bomb-laser system to be honest, they use lasing rods that have to be precisely aligned, and since a shockwave tends to accompany a nuclear blast these rods often fall out of alignment and produce a much less intense beam. They'd perhaps fare better as a long-range AOE anti-starfighter solution, as the range is around 10,000km. I can't see a plasma beam being useful beyond a range of a few dozen kilometers without the inclusion of repulsor wizardry, but then you'd need to somehow build nuclear detonation resistant repulsors. (Anon)'' ''-Lasers might not be the best option for bomb-pumping, but creating an angled neutron blast would be perfect for taking out large numbers of fighters and drones from neutron flux breaking the circuitry. Initial American efforts in anti-ICBM during the cold war relied upon this effect by detonating a focused warhead in proximity of an incoming warhead. Would be perfect for taking out large clusters of starfighter sized vessels since neutron radiation is harder to shield against. (Anon)'' That 3-4% may have been the result of having them nearby a detonating nuke, instead of the nuke going off inside the device. '' PLAUSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:01, September 15, 2015 (UTC) Jump-drive Torpedo A standard torpedo mounting a one-shot subspace drive that would burn out on use. When approaching an enemy shield layer, the drive activates and pushes the torpedo through the enemy shields and back into real-space inside their shield bubble. ''Would likely work better in the role of a cruise missile, bombarding ships or installations from the edge of a system. EDIT: Alliance or Terrans could probably unlocks this eventually. Should be combined with FTL Drone Torpedo or result from development from it. PLAUSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:05, June 30, 2015 (UTC) Ground Penetrating Torpedo Sort of like a super-bunker-buster, except when the enemy sets up a massive forcefield around a location and you don't want to waste an SP torp, you drop one of these outside the field, and it tunnels its way under and detonates near the shield generator. Shallans would be all for this. Other Factions would be reluctant on worlds they plan to retake. POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:07, June 30, 2015 (UTC) Phase-Pumped Plasma Weapons Acute tuning of phase weaponry to produce a refined 'disintegration' style beam that breaks atomic bonds. Aimed at a specially aligned copper capsule the phase weapon would break it down in conjunction with heating it, a tandem phase cannon charge could help magnets to compress and accelerate the copper plasma beam/pulse out of the weapon. Early work on this concept has helped unlock scaled down Plasma weapons for Dominion R&D. POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:09, June 30, 2015 (UTC) Dominion Plasma Pulse Weapons Plasma weapons have always been said to be beams. Maybe amping up the repulsors used in the Dominion plasma weapons would make it more like a bullet? Exploring into the different shapes of plasma would be a good idea too, as holding any plasma in a 'blob' is often seen as a terrible idea. Based on current research, a 'disc' shape would be the most ideal form for Dominion Plasma Weapons. Structuring it any way will lead to a more powerful and longer lived projectile. Another thing to look into would be a thin film coating on the end of weapon barrels to keep the plasma projectile together, giving it superior range. Fusion Pulse weapons exist but fell into disuse when phased pulse weaponry were developed in the middle of the Faction Wars. It is possible to modify existing fusion cannons to work like this, but since most weapons like those you encountered were older ones fielded by Pirates they couldn't compete. With modern upgrades to newer weapons it could work. Not sure about the disc shaped aspect tbh. POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:15, June 30, 2015 (UTC) Phase Fusion Cannons Since Superballs/Elites are available for Faction use, they appears to be reverse engineered. So, Quad-linked Siege Phase Fusion Cannons when? ''-All of those weapons/corvettes You've seen in use with J-D forces were salvaged by House Expeditionary fleets. Sonia's fleet picked up a few with the larger ships they salvaged but other fleet commanders have been trying to capture more. It's one of the cheaper ways of getting hold of weapons and replacement parts for ships like the Heavy Carrier, though quite dangerous. '' The Alliance has managed to get hold of a few of the newer Neeran corvette production lines and are known to sell some of the corvettes to boost their funding and pay for research. Because of resales they're beginning to appear more on the black market. A Faction version of the phased plasma weapons are in development but still needs time. For now the new LD plasma cannon matches it's firepower at closer ranges and is ready for mass production making it increasingly popular to Houses of the Dominion. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 13:56, September 11, 2015 (UTC) Custom phased Fusion weapons? Some day. PLAUSIBLE "Quad-linked Siege Phase Fusion Cannons when?" Unlikely to never. UNWORKABLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 04:24, September 16, 2015 (UTC) Dominion HD/4k Plasma We have Dominion low definition plasma so HD or 4k is the next step. -''Helios siege cannon upgrades.'' POSSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:15, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Antimatter-catalyzed Fusion Weapons By spiking fusion reaction with small amount of antimatter, we can greatly increase temperature of resulting plasma, increasing both damage and most likely range. Reaction containment may be an issue. ---ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 21:28, February 20, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Medium-Dominion Plasma Cannon Dominion-built Medium Plasma Cannons are inferior both in range and damage capacity. While it is a significant disadvantage, it does mean that both recoil and heat buildup is less than it's Republican counterpart. If it's power system is upgraded, it should be possible to improve the rate of fire without significant rebuild of weapon itself. As Dominion versions just kind of suck by comparison they've got roughly the same heat generation. Maybe I was pushing the Clan vs Inner Sphere angle too hard with that one. The recoil thing get's into specific impulse vs thrust, which I don't want to do actual work on so I'll give you that one. ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:12, November 15, 2016 (UTC) Cooling Laser upgrade for UV Laser Ascendancy Flash-freezing enemy ships for easy salvage. Also can be used to perform technically not a war crimes upon enemy planets. ''-Might be an interesting weapon to intercept Scorcher plasma blasts as well. Freeze them before they can do any damage.'' ''--If I remember correctly, using this as a plasma projectile defense was one of the first suggestions that came up for the cooling laser.'' Drones and unmanned weapon Systems Torpedo Pods Disposable Launchers stuffed with 6 torpedoes. Can be towed by warships to add additional single shot firepower at the cost of acceleration. Alternatively, they may be independently deployed in orbit in an area defense mode. Designed to be easily stored in stasis to allow for peacetime reductions in budget allocation. Sounds like a gunsat upgrade. Doable. Guess we'll need a planetary defense weapons page soon. '' POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:19, June 30, 2015 (UTC) Point Defense Drones LST sized drone equipped with point defense and anti starfighter missiles. Adds depth to a fortress or stations point defense net. ''A Scarab II modification would be the best bet for this. They're light, maneuverable and tough for their size. You may face POLITICAL (not physical) difficulties with makin''g it unmanned. This modification is easy enough that the RSS R&D team could quickly conduct it if other Houses havent already done so quietly.'' POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:24, June 30, 2015 (UTC) FTL Recon Drone & Torpedo FTL Drone Torpedo A drone equipping the smallest FTL drive possible, filled with SP torpedo warheads. Launch from a carrier ship, the Drone jumps as close as it can to enemy contacts and accelerates the SP warheads with an onboard repulsor railgun/driver, then jumps away again, to refill. FTL Recon Drone A drone equipped with a short range ftl drive and maximum stealth capabilities. The tender drops out of FTL short of the target system, then sends the drone on ahead. -''If these were both developed as part of the same project I would say it is possible since both would require an equally small FTL system.'' POSSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:21, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Disposable Infantry Plasma Weapon A launcher sized disposable plasma weapon designed specifically to damage/disable Neeran commando units. No reloading, minimal safeties, entirely focused on outputting the most devastating and unavoidable plasma beam an infantry unit could carry. It is difficult to achieve all of these objectives in one weapon. The most damaging I could think of would be a rocket propelled plasma warhead carried like any man portable anti-tank rocket. '' ''Another option might be to make a larger version of the older Shallan Fusion Gun modified to use a Republic plasma weapon fuel cell. Problem is that you'd need to carry a tripod mount for it with smart grapples to hold it down when firing. Range limitations still apply with a wider beam spread. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 15:16, January 1, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Kinetic Weapon Systems Coilgun Inspired Ship Mounted Mass Driver The Neeran repulsor mass driver installed on the Arbalest looks like a pretty inefficient design. Considering their weaponry seemed to be focused entirely on fusion or plasma designs before the current conflict, this might be another area where FA technology is actually superior. With a bit of luck we might be able to fit a comparable mass driver in a specifically designed Heavy Cruiser solely by arranging the repulsors in a smarter way. Sonia already has a company that is producing mass drivers, so some expertise in the area is already available. Which in turn means a feasibility study should be doable without expending a lot of resources. This type of design already exists and was made available to build at your Heavy Cruiser yard. https://archive.moe/tg/thread/37202137/#37258398 Scrap Cannon Battery ship using the hull of a Cygni class Heavy Transport. The Neeran ship uses a single large weapon compared to the Faction scrap cannons normally using several to produce the same effect. Each scrap cannon on a Heavy Cruiser version won't cause as much damage because of the shorter length but you could mount more of them.' ' POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 15:51, June 12, 2015 (UTC) ''-Oh, that's interesting. Thank you. Would it be possible to add heavy cruiser shipyard prices and maintenance costs to the price list?'' RSS Rifle Upgrade Ideas? * under-barrel 40mm attachment for those sticky halfmoon rounds, or potentially even 40mm ammo? * Possible upgrade from the 20mm ammo to 30 or 40mm ammo to help deal with those Neeran arm shields? * New Munition: Scaled down 'sticky' halfmoon (20mm specialty munition?) Point-Defense Barge A dedicated ship that can latch on to the hulls of larger ships or fly alongside, no offensive armament but a literal ton of Repulsor based point defense. The PD turrets should make current-gen CIWS look slow in comparison, absolutely fill space with rounds. Also try equipping large Flak Cannons, firing explosive smart-rounds. Break up entire fleets of enemy starfighters, or burst Neeran plasma balls by firing a Flak Round right into the center and blowing it apart. -''A light corvette might work. So could a HAG modification that replaced the heavier turrets with smaller ones dedicated to point defense.'' -TSTG -As a prototype, how much would a light corvette variant cost? Incl. research costs -''You could do it super cheap by taking an existing cheap design and throwing as many point defense guns on it as possible. You could redesign a suitable ship, or you could design one from the ground up. Another option might be to make use of the locals in the Smuggler's Run, they used to mod ships all the time. Get them to present competing designs and you pick the winner for production.'' Depending on methods used it could cost up to 10-20 million. It would still be best to choose either this or the point defense drone to focus on, not both. POSSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:37, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Really big tank cannon Repulsor based tank cannon, the most powerful we can make, designed to punch all the way through Neeran Superheavy Tanks with splinter rounds. -''A Tank Destroyer as big as most heavy tanks used by the Dominion might be able to carry such a gun. It would have to be spinal mounted. Basically you'd be looking at a repulsor lift version of the Shadowsword.''--ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 01:15, January 25, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE Multiple Round Impact System A software update/upgrade to all our repulsor weapons that let them fire two/three shots in incredibly rapid succession so all the shots land exactly on the same point. Eg: load a weapon with a splinter round then a HE round, fire it and watch as the splinter round punches a nice channel for the HE round to follow. -''Because the Reynard Rifle isn't overpowered enough? I'm going to say that it's possible to implement with the 20mm on the larger rifles but has a fairly long minimum effective range and its use would be discouraged due to trouble with the compensator system and the size of the projectiles. Viable enough on the vehicle mounted weapons, though minimum range would still be a problem. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 01:24, January 25, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE Siege Mass Driver Sonia has a company experienced with a variety of mass driver designs, and access to a race that has relied on large scale mass drivers for space travel for several centuries. Why not use that know-how to design and build a mass driver alternative to the various super heavy weapons such as the Helios Siege Cannon? The 3 or 4 long range weapon systems of that size available right now don't seem to be produced in sufficient numbers, so even with the drawbacks kinetic weapons have in ship to ship combat in H&D the idea might be worth investigating. Ships Assault Corvette Refit Modification of the Dominion Assault Corvette to serve as an ecm and eccm ship for assault corvette wings. ECM and ECCM pods designed to be compatible with any Alliance Assault Corvette design were recovered by teams as part of salvage operations that captured Neeran high speed transports. (The ones with the V-Torps, SP and Rovinar Sp Torpedoes.) Your ships can make use of them. Both the Dominion and the Terrans are rumored to be working on a dedicated support system corvette model but there are problems with it gaining too much mass. This model is delayed. Prototypes that can keep pace with friendly ships have been built but they lack energy weapons.'' '' POSSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:36, June 30, 2015 (UTC) Factions Alliance custom-built flagship The Devourer isn't really suited to act as a command ship for the fleets Sonia commands these days, and her talents as a pilot and tactician are wasted on most medium cruisers and especially on heavies or carriers. On top of that, neither Sonia nor House Jerik-Dremine has access to the high tech toys that let a ship punch above its weight. So why not ask the FA to build us our own Odyssey class equivalent ship specifically designed for raids? Odyssey's drives, Rovinar cloaking technology, Krath drive flare shenanigans, Isolationist Neeran shields, Kavarian repair technology... even just one or two of those things would be pretty nice. If you were willing to accept a demotion and command only smaller raiding fleets it might be workable. EDIT: Odds are good they would just assign a ship that was close enough in terms of performance to do the job. If you want a custom ship like that you would need to built it yourself. For now I'm going to list it as unworkable. UNWORKABLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:30, September 15, 2015 (UTC) Polaris class refit ideas PD variant: A Polaris Class Cruiser which forgoes almost all direct combat capabilities for EW equipment, missile launchers, and PD mass drivers. Maybe some suicide drones attached to the outer hull to ram into SP torps. Designed to squeeze some additional service life during fleet engagements out of the aging Polaris. As the Neeran have most likely managed to capture large stockpiles of SP torpedoes during the last raid, it's very likely only a matter of time until they'll be able to produce them themselves. Torpedo variant: A Polaris variant where every piece of unnecessary equipment is removed and instead replaced with either a torpedo or a missile launch tube. SP torpedoes are 2m in length. A Polaris should have a length of around 500m while significantly shorter in diameter. Let's says we have an area of 150m*50m available for launchers. Even if a launcher requires a surface area of 2m*2m and twice of that in equipment around the launch tube, we can still shove between 300 to 400 torpedo launch tubes in that space. If I remember correctly, an entire House Jerik-Dremine Attack Wing has a combined torpedo salvo of around 800. So even with 1-shot tubes the ship's firepower would be rather impressive. ''-The Polaris was configured to support as many cheap conventional weapons as possible in a small starship with minimal crew. Electronic warfare would be better done on any other platform where there is excess hull space. A torpedo variant could work but would see ammunition and logistics issues similar to (or worse than) those of newer Aries ships. If you want a couple of one off models converted it could be done. '' PLAUSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:59, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Reynard Starfighter As it seems like a lot of the starfighter forces are built upon old, aging hulls and designs, we should attempt to design an incredibly modern fighter. Cram as many modern things on it as possible, such as the stasis shields an Anon suggested, high-powered engines with combined bottle/generator afterburners (the generator trickle charges the bottle, dumps all the antimatter when a boost is needed, recharges over time) and short barrel particle beams like we saw the warlords use. In the event drones take over, designing the fighter without considering the occupant should be a primary goal, and then limiters put in place to make it safe for human use. We have our design lab who just finished the HAG and the Nai superscientists, it's the perfect project. It could be our Vector W8, so to speak. ''-Fighters are disposable and cheap, making them extremely individually expensive doesn't seem smart to me. A lot of the ideas here have that cost efficiency problem actually.'' ''-I don't disagree, they're definitely disposable, but if we design a fighter that costs twenty percent more than all the competitors but lasts double the length of time in combat, it's going to be worth it. Probably something to look into.'' - I don't think stasis shields or AM fighter afterburners exist yet, and even if they did the craft wouldn't be classified as a fighter due to the size of everything that has been suggested as a feature? The idea of competing with established fighter producers isn't that appealing, either. We found an unexploited niche with the HAG. The new starfighters developed by the Ruling House, Ber'helum and Kharbos would make it difficult to privately fund a new starfighter design. I threw in the AM Afterburner on the Kharbos one for you. If you put enough money into the project it could be done. PLAUSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:05, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Medium Cruiser Rapid Assembly Line Name says it all. Medium Cruiser spam like never before. We will be swimming in money! Requires political and financial support from other Houses including your own. PLAUSIBLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:15, September 15, 2015 (UTC) Starfighter Holographics Package Since we now have a holographics factory available, let's make an upgrade package for starfighters that projects the pilots a holographic HUD inside the cockpit, combining the Trajectory Analysis Program with a system to tell the pilots where the strike enemy craft. So when fighting, the target they're after would have a small holographic display of that target, and it shows the pilots where their shots are landing. Modifications to a starfighter's existing display programs would be sufficient to perform most of this without adding extra distraction for the pilot. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:12, September 15, 2015 (UTC) UNWORKABLE or UNNECESSARY Assault Corvette Carrier (Light Cruiser and Medium Cruiser sized) AC support options for the smaller budget or for situations in which a Heavy Carrier or even larger ships would be overkill. 90% certain I wrote a response to this. You could modify a Y-type or smaller transport or one of the Alliance Escort Carrier designs to provide repairs and support to a couple of assault corvettes. There is already a Carrier sized support ship that can also fix attack cruisers. A Kilo or Pico class Medium could be converted to act as a supporrt ship. You've seen them act as repair ships before. This will reduce their weapons compliment and ability to defend themselves. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:21, September 15, 2015 (UTC) POSSIBLE Fuel Cell Fighter I remember TSTG saying that major portion of fighter price-tag is it's reactor. It may be possible to replace it with stasis fuel cell, lowering manufacturing and operation costs. Would be ideal for drones, as well. -Without a reactor and fusion drive a starfighter engine is unable to perform its primary function. Power cells would not be sufficient to propel a Repulsor only fighter outside the atmosphere. Unless the plan is to provide the army or PDF with close air support fighters this is unworkable. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:53, September 18, 2015 (UTC) UNWORKABLE Not quite what I had in mind. What I proposed is to replace both reactor and engine with stasis cell, charged with large amount of high-temperature plasma. Trust will be provided by venting this plasma via magnetic nozzle. While such set-up will require auxiliary power source for onboard electronics and most likely preclude the use of beam weapons, missiles/torpedoes will be available. Thus my note about being ideal for drones. Alternatively, fighter-scale fusion cannon can serve as adequate direct-fire weapon. -Update following discussions in thread(s) late 2015 Z10 Avenger ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 19:27, January 1, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE Pocket Medium Cruiser I think the recent conflict with Erid has shown that our House lacks a ship of the line for larger battles where we can't rely completely on maneuver warfare. Medium Cruisers remain rare, expensive, and even the infrastructure to produce them is incredibly costly. So I'd like to suggest designing a medium cruiser reduced in size to be built in battleship yards. Taking the design of the Pico would make sense because its shape is closer to the layout of most battleships than most other mediums while maximizing tonnage, and it should be easy to scale it down thanks to the simply geometric layout. Recent advances in technology should help with this idea. The result would probably be a 1600m brick. We could call it a Nano. -''This sounds like a pretty promising idea. Given that we've picked up a lot of Shallan refugees, there's bound to be some fusion experts (if I remember correctly, Shallan were the guys good with fusion/fuel cell tech) among them. If we're able to recruit them to the design team they could probably work out a reduced fusion drive size whilst retaining power output.'' ''-So basically you want to build a Battleship that is like a miniaturized Pico. I am afraid I do not see the point of that since there are already several good Battleship designs we can make use of.'' ''--Not really. I want to design something that's a smaller "proper" medium cruiser, and not and oversized attack or battle cruiser. The line kinda blurs upwards as there are several medium cruisers that seem to be oversized attack or battle cruisers, while there is no battleship that doesn't doesn't put emphasis on maneuvering or mobility.'' ''- Have to agree with the guy above. This sounds like why they created the Lance Class, but cranked up to 11. The Lance already has issues with being blasted or rammed in half.'' ''--The Lance was designed to get something the size of a medium cruiser built as cheaply as possible. The idea behind this design is to construct something that fulfils the battlefield role of a more traditional medium cruiser while built in a shipyard one size smaller. Many of the newer medium cruiser designs seem to stray into heavy cruiser terrain anyway, with all those spinal mount shenanigans.'' ''--- Going to take both of your responses into consideration for this one. Sorry if that causes confusion. Can you give more info on the 'there are several medium cruisers that seemto be oversized attack or battle cruisers', 'Many of the newer medium cruiser designs seem to stray into heavy cruiser terrain anyway' and what you are defining as 'the battlefield role of a more traditional medium cruiser' ?'' ''---- 'there are several medium cruisers that seemto be oversized attack or battle cruisers' I meant ships like the Endeavour class, and Rovinar or Norune Mediums. And perhaps to a lesser extend the Sledge Hammer class. Heavy frontal fire power, often emphasizing spinal or fixed exmplacements over turreted weaponry. They're clearly designed to keep moving, and frequently engage and disengage different targets over the course of a battle. 'Many of the newer medium cruiser designs seem to stray into heavy cruiser terrain anyway' Before the recent conflict heavy cruisers seemed to have been the primary platform for low rate of fire siege weapons, although I must admit I don't have much to go on to arrive at that conclusion. The Helios Medium was a rare (the only?) exception. Several newer medium cruisers seem to have started to be designed around similar configurations, either by trying to mount weapons previously only found on heavies like the Raven, or by upgrading existing designs to include a large number of heavy spinal weapons like the most recent Shukhant upgrade. 'the battlefield role of a more traditional medium cruiser' After looking at the oldest designs listed on the wiki, the Trident, and the Kilo, I put them into context of our encounters with smaller Neeran fleets during our raids in the Maelstrom. To me it seems that a medium cruiser's role in H&D warfare before SP torps must have been that of a line breaker, and strongpoint for friendly forces. For example: several times during our combat against Neeran forces without super heavies present smaller ships used friendly medium cruisers as cover to recharge their shields, while the medium's armaments dissuaded fast enemy ships from pursuit. SP torps are still expensive and produced only by 2 factions, and have become easier to counter over the past decade. With recent advances in drone and armor technology, a large number of older SP torpedoes have noticeably decreased in effectiveness, slightly shifting military doctrine to favor different weapons. And I'm almost falling asleep while typing this. Sorry if it that wall of text doesn't make any sense I'll probably be able to write something better tomorrow.'' ''-v- Suggestion: Barge. This would not fit a normal Transport or BC/BS shipyard. One would need to be modified but it would fit with some of the ideas being thrown around. The next closest existing thing I could think of would be the Deci Class but it has issues. I guess you could expand it. The Alliance Medium Escort is small for it's size category, again not ideal for the shipyards you want to use. Just throwing ideas out there. ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 06:14, September 16, 2015 (UTC)'' So, either design (modular) Combat Barge along the lines of Alliance Medium Escort, except even smaller so it can fit a barge-grade shipyard, or scale up aforementioned yard to be able to build small Medium Cruiser? -''Given that a lot of people seem to want different designs of ships now, maybe it's worth buying up a whole company that deals in starship structural R&D? '' "Fleet Battleship" bow for the Alliance Fast Battleship The current bow sections available for this ship allow it to either tackle enemies with a spinal medium plasma cannon, or attack with a large number of torpedo launchers. Both choices seem more suited to medium or long range engagements so, in my opinion, this class needs an option for battles where it will be necessary to engage at close to medium range. http://imgur.com/DHh80M1 2x single barrel LD plasma turret, 2x double barrel LD plasma turret, 2x torpedo launcher, 4x missile launcher, 8x light phase cannon turret (arrays? maybe quad barrel variants?), mass driver PD, armor. It would definitely make the ship sluggish compared to the other listed modules, by adding weight and very likely drawing more energy from the generators than the other configurations. I based the strength of the armament on Arie's new modular battleship, which has less weapons on the interchangeable part, while having more on the rest of the ship. I also have no idea if double barrel LD plasma turrets are either feasible or sensible. ''-For balance reasons I've only been allowing double barrel LD's on larger ships like the Medium escort. As far as designs go it's not bad but could be over powered. It's war time but there are limits to power creep. I'll need to think about it some more.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:11, September 18, 2015 (UTC) --The first design had 4 single barrel LD turrets but then I had a look at Aries' Athena class and those ships can already carry 4 single barrel LD turrets while also having a much more impressive loadout on the base ship. So I thought giving the Dominion contribution to that project double barrel LD turrets would be a nice way to acknowledge Dominion expertise in that area compared to Aries. Of course it's hard to say how the two ship types compare beyond armament, so even with less raw firepower the alliance design could be competitive. Supercarriers Super-heavies converted for heavy shielding and operation of corvettes and fighters in truly gargantuan numbers. Torpedo Cruiser 2: Antimatter Boogaloo Heavy antimatter torpedo is deadly but highly volatile weapon, even if we use chargeable instead of pre-loaded warheads; We don't want to mount them on the ship we want to keep. Judging by Terran Veckron torpedo ships, battleship-scale ship appear to be an optimal combination of expendability and durability if your limitations are launchers rather than ammo. Athena class heavy battleship is capable of carrying AM torpedoes, but it is relatively sluggish, making it difficult to control engagement range or escape; Additionally, cost and rarity make them less attractive platforms for mass deployment. I propose we develop a new battleship, reusing as much as possible hull and components of Dominion Fast Battleship or Dominion Battlecruiser Deci variant, either standard or Diamond hull. The primary weapon would be AM torpedo launcher, buried deep within ship along with heavy reinforced magazines and/or antimatter generator. To reduce intercept chances, torpedo would be fired via spinal mass-driver and, if feasible, given additional boost by Arbalest-type repulsor arcs. Technology Cooling Laser Start up a very deeply hidden lab on Rioja, invite various corporate partners we can trust (DHI, etc) to invest and supply research staff in addition to our own. Reverse engineer the laser and get it to a stage where it can be easily produced. The one we have cools things to near-zero Kelvin, which is massive overkill. If we can develop a less powerful one that's even easier to mass produce, even better. Begin liaising with the multitude of companies that produce reactors for starships and develop overhaul packs that can strip out the outdated cooling systems of ships and replace them with the much more efficient laser system. Make a multi-use pack that can be applied to various things, such as weapons, and industrial applications. Also keep this secret since this is the sort of thing we'd get a Neeran commando hunting us down for. Rapid-fire plasma weapons Plasma weapons especially infantry based ones seem to all stick to semi-auto, thus lacking suppression power. Looking into a way of making rapid fire bolts could be productive even if it requires the power of each individual beam to be decreased. Perhaps smaller fuel cells and a rotary firing chamber would work. ''-I realised we'd have no chance doing this if it were republic style but since we've picked up a lot of shallan refugees maybe we can make it a fusion beam autorifle?'' ''-Cleaned up the design and coloured it (colours stolen from the phase cannon pic), you can actually see what does what now. Plain: http://i.imgur.com/CWD0dDM.png With labeled sections, now with ammo: http://i.imgur.com/ZwkN6C1.png'' ''-H&D BFG? ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:06, June 30, 2015 (UTC) ''-More like a fusion gun AA-12. I'm going to say possible but will take awhile. POSSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:25, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Stellar Engineering Once the Harmen family has finished their current projects in House Veritas space, it could be a good idea to combine our resources to find a way to make the uninhabitable systems covered by a nebula in House Jerik-Dremine space habitable. ''-You realise that it could be a generation before the House Veritas projects are completed right? ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:28, June 18, 2015 (UTC)'' ''--No, I didn't. I was expecting the terraforming project to finish around the same time as the one on Rioja.'' ''-Rioja's terraforming had been underway for more than ten years before your House got it. ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:26, September 18, 2015 (UTC)'' Neutron Rifle Basically our X-Ray rifle on mega-steroids. -''Radiation problems. Could be workable if only issued to Clone troops.'' -TSTG PLAUSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:27, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Gravity Weapons We encountered that device that strips layers from a star to fuel various things. Let's mount one on a ship and use it to rip enemy ships apart. ''-Harmonic Resonance Repulsor. Buy one.'' ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 03:18, June 24, 2015 (UTC) -You could at some point see about upgrading the PPCDG's on your command ship to Storm Cannons. These are a combination of PPCDG and Harmonic Resonance Repulsor but those fielded by previous generations broke down twice as fast as either weapons. POSSIBLE --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 20:30, September 18, 2015 (UTC) Git gud with the Energy Convertor We need to practice with this thing at every opportunity. Using it needs to become super natural for Sonia. Even though we can't use it fully to the 'deflect gunshots' level, this is still a super hacky item. Esoteric uses the Neeran don't think of is where this will shine through. Imagine distracting someone with false thermal images of a person when we're cloaked, shorting out sensitive security systems, darkening the lights in a room for easier breaching assaults, or even figuring out how to remotely create sounds. Plasma Pistol in one hand and this thing in the other, it's a perfect combo. Phase Burst Cannon Phase cannons that fire bursts of three shots. Size of a burst variant is equal to that of a normal phase cannon's damage, but you'd get a greater depth of fire with these and shields might struggle to compensate with the multiple shots in quick succession, especially Neeran. -''I had put up a response to this. i dont know what happened to it. Maybe it was answered in the tread? This is more or less how pulse cannons work, just not specifically limited to three shots.'' - TSTG Repulsor Engines Upscaled hyper-repulsors capable of starship propulsion. ''-Possible but less efficient the farther away you are from objects like planets to repel the ship from.'' ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 06:00, January 2, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE Wormhole-based high security communication Establish a small wormhole between two places, and then use it to send and receive information incredibly fast with the added benefit that nobody would be able to intercept it. Or listen in on the transmission. ''-It is said that quantum entanglement communication doesn't work across infinite distances because it would be limited by the speed of light. Yet the Rovinar somehow figured out a way to make it work...'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 06:03, January 2, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE Adaptive Structuring Something interesting to try when designing newer ships would be to construct hollow segments of the superstructure, and fill them with tightly would electrically reactive carbon-nanotubes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube_actuators). These could act like muscles and in the event of damage, could be dynamically tensed or relaxed to hold a ship in shape and to offer greater protection. ''-Basically a shape memory alloy strengthening / repair system? Along similar but less related lines I've been thinking of other options with stasis fields to act as a part of a theoretical structural integrity field. Stasis tech is too expensive to really pull it off right now though. I'll give some thought to the adaptive structure thing as part of hull upgrade options. I've had plans for various nanoweave hull upgrades since way back that would allow it to flex more under a hit and this could work well with that.'' - TSTG ''-Yea, essentially that. It's a flexible system which lets a ship react to damage it takes basically. If nanotech is taking off, you could augment the system by having the superstructure/hull of the ship be porous, and then slowly pump nanites through to self-repair, essentially.'' ''-This (muscle-simulation) system could also result in damaged ships causing further damage or literally tearing themselves apart, while providing little (or no, depending on particular ship's superstructure?) practical benefit for most forms of damage. The tech may be more helpful as a passive system to secure modular sections (relax to aid in module swap/removal, tense to lock in place?) or even as an augmentation to strengthen assault corvette frames where microfractures are being an issue. tech is !!FUN!! in every way.'' ''-I'm now picturing a ship tearing itself apart like The Major when fighting the tank at the end of Ghost in the Shell. Anyways, possible ship upgrades down the line, though it will be 1 of a couple options to choose from.''--[[User:ThatSlowTypingGuy|ThatSlowTypingGuy] (talk) 06:20, January 2, 2016 (UTC) Gravity Drives/Engines These would be super cool, plus gravity weapons already exist so I bet it's gonna be super easy to make these into something better that would totally work excellently and not rip ships into tiny pebbles. ''-Going to say plausible. Factions don't have the sort of control necessary yet. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 04:09, January 3, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Dominion Plasma Small Arms With Dominion plasma tech being significantly smaller than its Republic equivalent at this point, wouldn't it make sense to start looking into adapting that advantage into a line of infantry arms? ''- I believe that the Dominion is only capable of producing an inferior version of the plasma cannon used on the Centurion, which sort of dominates that light cruiser. It seems to be extremely premature to think about reliable infrantry-scale plasma weapons made by the Dominion. Likely better off focusing on those new reverse engineered Neeran fusion pistols that are a full/heavy rifle for humans. (The Dominion is only what? a few (tens of?) hundred years behind the Republic in plasma tech?)'' Hybrid Repulsor/Fusion Drive Large scale repulsors sound expensive and impractical. Combining existing fusion drives with upscaled repulsor technology might be an interesting combination. -''Current up to date fusion drives already make extensive use of repulsors to increase exhaust velocity. What you're suggesting should be possible in time as a result of progression of existing tech. '' You could go for an engine with a higher repulsor power output compared to what the fusion drive contributes, it just would mean high maneuver drives wouldn't work with it.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 06:33, January 2, 2016 (UTC)'' Realised a few hours after responding that this probably makes the most sense as the type of engines used on advanced cloaked ships. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 21:49, January 5, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE Hybrid Generator/Fuel Cell Afterburner Use stasis fuel cells to store anti-matter, allowing you to use all of your weapons. These fuel cells would be reloaded by generators during the lulls in combat, when you don't need full energy output. Will need field-rechargeable plasma fuel cells and/or AM Heavy Torpedo tech, most likely. -''This is more or less how the antimatter stores on super heavy cruisers have always worked, it's just that now they've been upgraded with stasis reinforced storage tanks. They may still be vulnerable to Veckron radiation so the old jettison protocol remains in place. Right now there aren't any smaller afterburner equipped ships using this setup simply because it would be more expensive and take up more space within the ship. You could order some ships be outfitted like this but they'll need to find the extra room somewhere. Probably by reducing fuel stores or armor. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 03:46, January 3, 2016 (UTC) I assumed that costs (and size) of AM generators would scale roughly linearly to ship's engine power. Thus, replacing attack cruiser-sized generator with frigate-sized one and covering the difference with stasis bottles should allow us to equip more ships with afterburner system, albeit one with some limitations. Did I assumed wrongly? -That was the idea. A smaller Generator, with a simple buffer system, ultimately resulting in a lower cost package, and one that uses less/no energy when activated. POSSIBLE Inverted Stasis Generator Makes stuff inside the field go faster instead of slower. Could be immensively useful for research and design work, or even rapid production. Although it would probably prohibetively expensive on a large scale as you would have to pay a month of work every day or replace machinery in hours. ''-Right now only the Rovinar have the advanced working knowledge of stasis tech to conceivably develop this. They've shown no signs of progress on it.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 04:07, January 3, 2016 (UTC) UNWORKABLE Artificially Induced Planetary Gravitational Slingshot. The Berle'hum gravity generator, unlike previous efforts to restrict FTL, works by producing an actual gravity singularity. While this has enormous strategic and tactical military implications, I fear Berle'hum has overlooked a significant business opportunity. Specifically, the ability to temporarily produce planetary masses when and where we want to makes it feasible to use those gravity wells to slowly adjust the orbit of entire planets using the same theory as real life gravitational slingshot. Specifically, it makes it at least theoretically possible to move the 1.08G rocky planet from the inner System of Rioja to the habitable zone over a period of years. While the math to do this quickly without breaking the planet or wrecking the rest of the system would undoubtedly be complex, but that's what we have AIs for. Do you think Ber'helum would be willing to fund a test project in return for the idea? After we buy up the planet for pennies on the dollar of course. I ran some math on this, and it seems totally possible, assuming the Ber'helum singularity generator works the way we've been told: New Horizons speed, pre-Gravitational Slingshot (m/s): 16260 Rioja Orbital radius: 10.25 AU Rioja Obital Radius (Kilometers): 1533380000 Time to accelerate planet to New Horizons speed (assumes no slingshot .1G accel): 16570 Seconds, ~280 minutes. Time to reach orbital radius (assumes that you must travel the entire 10.25 AU distance): 94303813 seconds, 26195 hours, 1091 days. Or roughly 3 years. Even doubling this time-frame to allow for finicky adjustments to orbit it would still mean that the new planet would be ready for terriforming before Rioja's terriformation is finished. ''-On reading the title my first thought was that someone must have been reading Star Wars EU. Sorry it's "Legends" now. I fully expected someone to come up with those sort of military applications at some point for slingshots. I honestly did not expect its use for altering planetary orbits for terraforming purposes. '' There is a planet in the Run that would benefit the most from this technique and it's already inhabited. Mind you that makes using it more dangerous because people could die. It's the refugee infested planet held by the Ruling House, which had its orbit shifted some time in the past by a stellar object. '' ''Plenty of things could go wrong and so far a gravity well generator has never been kept active for longer than a few days. Because of this I'm listing it as plausible. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 01:53, January 25, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Combat Exo-skeleton: The poor man's alternative to power armor & for those less experienced Similar to modern exo-skeleton designs. Cabling/reinforcement supporting the weight of a soldier, attached to servo motors at key joints. Less resource intensive, and still capable of movement in the event of system failure. Offers increased maneuverability to soldiers or the option of carrying greater amounts of equipment/heavier weapons with ease. Could make use of synthetic muscle fibers for lower power requirements/ease of manufacture. Similar to the one found in the STALKER games. Ideally to bridge the gap between power-armored and standard troops, issued to those slightly below PA clearance. Super-dense Materials Would it be possible to use the black hole technology employed on Ber'helum gravity well ships to create incredibly dense materials? -I think we'd have better luck using reprogrammed nanites to construct higher quality components for ships. It's been mentioned once or twice that Neeran use them to create higher quality ship superstructures. Political Suicide Ideas Integrating Shallan Refugees into the House Do we have any Shallan Knights, or Men-at-Arms at this point? If not, it could be something that could be worth pushing for. They're already here, and any of them that won't return to Shallan space once the war is over after we've already spent money on them would probably benefit the House. ''This would require a policy change within J-D which is attempting to maintain the best possible relations with the Ruling House and it's other powerful allies. Houses following traditionalist and other old guard Dominion approaches to leadership and nobility currently make up a large power block, one the Ruling House desperately needs to maintain control right now. More progressive Houses are finding this annoying and exceedingly restrictive. ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:06, July 1, 2015 (UTC) '' Officially petition the Faction Alliance to rename 'Veckron Torpedoes' to 'Victory Torpedoes' in all official documents. The one will be a massive morale booster. POSSIBLE Central refugee processing facility for The Smugglers Run Either a large space station or ground facility to centralize refugee management in the area. People have their backgrounds and skills recorded, their health checked, get counselling if they need it, and the chance to get in contact with relatives also in The Smugglers Run or back home. After that they get directed to a planet that either needs their skills, or is accepting refugees in general. All official refugee traffic would be directed to this facility first and it would be operated by all Houses who contribute to its financing to avoid rendering the whole organization ineffective by too much favoritism. Those Houses would also get to pick a number 'desirable' refugees depending on how much they contribute. It would probably also be prudent to allow Terran and Dominion financial institues that operate in the area the refugees are coming from to open branch offices so people can access any possible financial reserves. - ''(A) Mission accomplished. -TSTG Operation Crossroad The Pandora cluster, controlled by "a loose alliance of worlds and systems" based upon former colonies of several factions. My plan was for the Dominion to initiate a conquest of the cluster once the Neeran war is over. However instead of launching massive invasion of Dominion Houses and fleets I propose another approach. Due to the individualistic streaks of the many, many, MANY words of the PCCG there are bound to be some planets ruled by potential warlords and people of ambition. With enough support from the Dominion in the form of creditas, weapons, supplies and ships these factions within the PCCG could start to conquer their neighbors and then join the Dominion as Houses, once payment has been made back ofcourse in the form of worlds and territories which can be sold for a token sum of money. A proxy war so to speak. This should prove somewhat effective due to the fact that the PCCG is not a real faction so to speak and that many of the planets value their independence as their own nation rather than holding any greater loyalty to the PCCG. In either case the operation should start to snowball fairly quickly once it really gets started seeing as each new House added to the Dominion weakens the PCCG in turn. -Plausible but suicidal. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 05:45, January 8, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Dominion Diarchy Going by the diplomats in the last thread of H&D, the Ruling House is very capable in some areas, and Ber'helum in others, and there's not too much overlap when it comes to their respective strengths and weaknesses. So why not give a Diarchy a try? If it was good enough for the Roman Empire and Sparta, it might be good enough for the Dominion. Putting the crazy back on the crazy ideas page. -''When you said Roman Empire I thought you were referring to the West/East empire split, not the two consul system of the Roman Republic. Unless you did mean that. The whole thing reminded me of Austria-Hungary, and I suspect that even in a best case scenario might last about as long. Jerik-Dremine works as well as it does because of the relatively small size the House was reduced to and forced to rebuild from. I won't say that it's outright unworkable but its plausibility is questionable.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 05:45, January 8, 2016 (UTC) Dominion Super Heavy Cruiser Shipyard The current conflict with the Neeran Empire would be the ideal time for the Dominion to jump-start their own Super Heavy Crusier production. The other Factions would most likely not dare to openly blockade the project, the Houses are currently forced to mostly play nice with each other, and we can either offer the shipyard to the FA to build their designs so we can... profit from their experience building ships of this size, buy an out dated design from either the SRL or Watcher Kavarians, or simply try to copy a Neeran design with the tech available to the Dominion. Bonus points if we manage to somehow set this up in a way that prevents a large succession war once the Neeran war is over. -''Options soon.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 05:45, January 8, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE House Medel This is for brainstorming both additional ways Sonia can assist Eshik Medel, and what she can reasonably expect in return. Material Support She could donate her privately owned House Transport, potentially modified, in order to grant the House In Exile additional legitimacy. -''While Sonia is for the moment taking the House Transport for use with her fleet, it could still be loaned or donated later.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 05:45, January 8, 2016 (UTC) Subsidization/Gifts of additional warships, armaments, or material in general Recruiting experts to help train/lead his forces. Maybe our contacts in Shallan space could find someone to help his attack cruiser squadrons? Gains Could Potentially become a formal vassal house. Alternatively, should we not be in a position to support them we could hand off formal vassalage to another party (such as Berlehum), in return for DHI RSS being granted concessions that make them the primary supplier of war material to the new house, granting House J-D considerable leverage anyway. ''-You've now taken steps to quietly introduce Medel to House Ber'helum, at least in a minor capacity. You're not expected to hand off support to the larger House but you could do so.''--ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:02, January 25, 2016 (UTC) POSSIBLE ...could we get a bit more elaboration than that? Knights Expeditionary Like the Knights Errant, only instead of trying to fix internal problems within the Dominion for the Ruling House, these support allied forces outside Dominion space. It would allow to get talented pilots away from Houses not supporting the FA beyond the required minimum. If the recruit has no adequate ship of their own, they could have one provided and pay it off in salvage. As the units would mostly operate in Shallan space, the Dusk AC would be a natural choice in order to make using Shallan infrastructure easy and effective. How convenient Sonia, Eshik Medel, and Jerik-Dremine can easily provide this ship at a very competetive price. ''-This seems like it would be a bit of a money sink as it would be competing with the Alliance. If people who join the Alliance have the skills they'll be assigned a ship. The Alliance buys assault corvettes and other ships directly from manufacturers so that they'll still have active fleet units available if some Baron heads back to the Dominion with the ones they brought along. This is now the Alliance was able to supply temporary replacement ships for Sonia's attack wings when they'd lost a few in combat.'' It could get the attention of nobles wanting to "skip the line" so to speak and get better ships. There are the classic downsides of the wealthy commanding something they really shouldn't. That's my take on it. It's definitely plausible, maybe even possible, but would require more support beyond just Sonia's respectable wealth. --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:16, January 25, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Hune/Kavarian/Rovinar/Shallan House One Ruling House established Human-led Houses at some point. I do not know how feasible this idea would be for races other than Shallans at this point but with the recent influx of refugees, establishing a Shallan-led House might be possible. Especially with all the territorial changes happening in the Dominion at the moment. ''-That was House Kharbos. When dealing with their ambassador it was mentioned that they would be open to nobility from different species. They would have been your best bet for that sort of thing. While Ber'helum is not against it they have little interest in supporting it. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:22, January 25, 2016 (UTC) Worth noting that one of the ex-warlord houses is run by a Rovinar. That counts. Shallan Protected State Once the Dominion civil war is over it might be possible to temporarily hand over one of those map hexagons to the Shallans. There should be a few of these with either only underdeveloped colonies, or planets that require expensive but not particularly extensive terraforming before becoming habitable (the old Posat colony close the Rioja currently held by the Ruling House, for example). Limit the duration to 150-200 years after which the Dominion has the right to buy the system back at the value of the investment the Shallans made there, or the lease extends for another, lower, amount of time (25-50 years?). ''-Giving territory and facilities to the Factions Alliance is one thing but another Faction entirely is something else. Expect strong political opposition. Extremely difficult. Plausible but suicidal.'' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:30, January 25, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE Smugglers Run Alliance Ship Review We have just had the chance to see how the various ships currently produced in the run perform against other Dominion ships. Now that we will hopefully have some downtime, I would like to suggest to review which ships did well, which did not, and to adjust production accordingly. Help allies switch to better designs, upgrade shipyards, and maybe start production of ships employed by Nasidum's fleet which performed exceedingly well. New Noble Ranks & reformation of existing ones. With the civil war, nows the time to do any reorginization of existing ranks and add any new ones that seem appropriate. Reformation Marquess/Margrav, and Archduke are rarely used and absurdly specific for such high ranks. I'd change Marquess into the form of address for the leader of the 21 midlevel houses, and Margrav as the form of address for the most powerful members of the 7. The Archduke would be the emperor's heir, or the leader of a member of the 7, with Dukes being the highest nobility of the ruling house. ''-Archduke is a good idea, I've been considering alternatives. May be having head of Nasidum declare themselves Grand Duke. '' Marquess/Margrave is intended to be a respected position as defense of the borders of the Dominion were once hard fought affairs and such appointments were not made lightly. Remaining Dominion positions in the DS2 micro cluster would belong to such nobles now, provided they haven't sided with the opposition. '' "In times past, the distinction between a count and a marquess was that the land of a marquess, called a march, was on the border of the country, while a count's land, called a county, often was not. As a result of this, a marquess was trusted to defend and fortify against potentially hostile neighbors and was thus more important and ranked higher than a count." -Wikipedia ''I am open to some other titles though, or something that would take their place. All the blasted titles between Duke and Emperor, yet there are few between Marquess and Duke. That's been an annoyance. Keep the suggestions coming! '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:50, January 25, 2016 (UTC) Dauphin and Landgrave. Landgrave might be a good title for the head of the 21. --You could extend the upper ranks with the prefixes Arch- and Demi- to signify more or less important than the majority of these positions. In addition to that you could upgrade the leaders of the seven great houses to elector dukes, as an acknowledgment that they're the ones who make or break the ruling house. Maybe upgrade the leaders of the 14 strongest middle houses to demi-dukes or another title to signify their status as almost great houses. Proposed new System: Emperor Archduke /Dauphin (head of Major house/Heir to Royal house. Prince is also acceptable, because there were independent nations ruled by princes historically called principalities.) Taishōgun (temporary noble rank) Duke Landgrave (German rank above count) Marquess/Margrave/Shogun (Specialty noble ranks) Count Earl Viscount Baron Knights New ranks There are only two new ranks, both borrowing from Terran tradition: Shogun, and Taishōgun. The Shogun is a temporary noble title denoting the military leader of an alliance of houses for a particular theater or campaign. The noble is usually but far from always drawn from the most powerful componant of the alliance, and is also knighted by the other members of the alliance. As the noble is nobility of all members of the alliance, he is (in theory) empowered to act in the name of the alliance as a whole rather than simply being a temporary military commander. And as the holding that comes with his or her knighthood is determined at the end of the campaign, he'd best act according to his role. The appointment of a shogun is either a declaration of tremendous esteem and trust among an alliance, or a way of promoting a talented commander into a position of authority they don't have the formal noble rank to command. (an example of this would be Berle'hum promoting Sonia to Shogun so she could command viscounts or earls without completely insulting them, and they can't pull shit on her without insulting a noble of Berle'hum.) Taishōgun is a similar role, but rather than being a noble who's supposed to act in the interest of an alliance, they are supposed to act in the interest of the Dominion as a whole, effectively making them the highest military rank in the entire dominion, answering only to the 8 and the conclave. Traditionally they are appointed by the 8 to handle a major war, or by an alliance of houses during a civil war as a barely veiled declaration of candacy for the throne. ''-I like these ideas in general. Not sure how their introduction would be handled but I have a couple of ideas. Also not sure how well they'd integrate with the space-european ranking system. Of course going down the path of the Shogun may lead to the dreaded Confederation government. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 02:59, January 25, 2016 (UTC) PLAUSIBLE -Maybe go with Marshall for the leader of an alliance, and Warmaster for the whole Dominion to keep the European theme? Neither of those are actual historical noble titles though. I prefer to keep the idea of Shogun (which could be considered a specialty title like Marquis or Margrave). I doubt you average Do'rall is going to care that the human noble title we're borrowing is from a different part of ancient human history. Its also one of the few noble titles that doesn't have a direct translation to European tradition. -''I don't know, Shogun just doesn't seem to click with me at some level, though I admit that it's a good idea. Marshal seems somewhat plausible to me. '' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 03:19, January 31, 2016 (UTC) Attack Cruiser Wing Upgrade one of our elite mixed wings into pure attack cruiser unit. Proposed structure: * 72 Dusk II (LD) * 12 EC-K (ECM/ECCM upgrade) * 4-6 Battlecruisers / Fast Battleships or equivalents * 1 Neeran Fast Medium Cruiser /or/ Eminence /or/ Lance upgrade Listed under 'suicide' header due to high chance of being shot for hoarding. Reynard™ Holoplex Exclusives + Expansion Take all our old mission files and experiences and turn them into 'deluxe' holoplex games that are only available at our chains. Things like the Lat'tham coup, rediscovering the Terran sleeper ship, battling Neeran commandos, salvaging the Veckron torpedoes, all the good/crazy stuff we've done. ''-A few would need to be cleared through various intelligence agencies including the Alliance in some cases. Other than that it should be fine. ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 06:02, July 7, 2016 (UTC) '' POSSIBLE Exploration Exploring FTL Nav Hazards Would it be possible to start exploring FTL navigation hazards close to House territory with the upgraded ship we used to get close to the Terran station? We could loot smaller items from wrecked ships and record their locations, survey various systems for resources, and maybe reestablish contact with isolated world or maybe even start colonizing a few without people noticing. ''- IIRC: Nav Guild can and will impose sanctions, as the old FTL zones are much worse than the one we just visited, and visiting them may damage their slow recovery (and piss off Nav Guild more). They may have also taken back the extra FTL bits. Final note would be the potential of Warlords slowboats sent into the Smuggler's Run Nav Hazards. It might be worth looking into investments into those Neeran sensors we encountered during our raids. iirc, we captured a few chunks/examples and they had a huge range compared to Factions ones. They could potentially give some eyes into the Nav Hazard areas of the Run. More Dreminth cave/bunker exploring We found some really cool stuff in that last bunker, especially those shaped charge phase rounds (did we ever test their effectiveness on Neeran?). Let's see if we can find some more, with even more cool stuff. Wasn't it technically illegal due to the House owning that land? And that said, Rioja apparently has a bunch of hab ruins, and at least some are on our land in the northern hemisphere. There may be some underground facilities to be found from the pre-Faction Wars years, the Faction Wars themselves, or the later waves of attempts to reclaim the Run. Any such facility/location that we can quietly reclaim could be very useful, even if it is empty. -''Everything of value in that area was removed by your teams'' -TSTG UNWORKABLE ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 22:42, September 15, 2015 (UTC) Operatin Raid the Dyson Sphere To begin, we should start by collating all the information we have on the Dyson Sphere from Svidur. From there, we should access any alliance records, information, and data they have. Put together a squad of all the best people we know, Eldal, Berwari, Dave, etc. When we raid it, let's not just go for some trinkets but try to score a whole vessel. ''-Remember that you'll be vulnerable to power drain while on the surface. Energy based firearms will be dead in maybe a day and the micro fusion reactors used in power armor will quickly burn through their fuel reserves. Sonia's cybernetics would prevent an extended expedition. '' --ThatSlowTypingGuy (talk) 03:06, January 25, 2016 (UTC) Reynard Intel Service Our desire to avoid politics and deal with the things that come with it have finally begun to allow either Knight Captain Fox, Governor Rna's Allies, or House Intel to screw us. It is time for RSS, RLS, RTS and Sonia herself to form an Intel force to defend against hostile agents. As we're behind the curve on this, I propose we do something a little crazy: We seek out assistance from outside J-D. A small group of Veteran Intel/Counter-Intel agents could be valuable for providing a temporary Intel group and training a more permanent group. Potential places to seek out this help (not listed by any preference, sanity of proposal or purposeful order): *Factions Alliance *Duke Ber'hulem (may see it as a chance to expand his influence, we could potentially tie it to a larger deal like selling RSS/RLS weapons/ships?) *Knights Errant (via connections, rather than direct help) *The AI Versa (possibly contract 'her' for a custom encryption protocol for Sonia?) *Rovinar Federation (We still have favor?) *Admiral(?) Thebe (possible Hune intel connections?) *Captain Yadclif Kymeri (They were security specialists when they stole that ship, and we did pay for him to get new limbs and such?) *Baron Te'ria Vulra (FA Sleeper turned Baron after heading home to gather more support. Potentially very interested in helping another pro-FA Dominion Noble, or as part of RSS/RLS weapon/ship deal) ''-We could also try to recruit Krath from the Kavarian Protectorate in Watcher space. It was suggested last thread but there wasn't exactly much feedback on that idea.'' House Erid Infiltration/Sabotage Kit Ideas/Requests 'Tracker Plate' - Rovinar special tracker isotope implanted into an adhesive or molecular bonding plate/stud thing (I imagine something like this exists for securing technicians/salvagers via tether in adverse EVA conditions. Slap down one of these plates on the ship's hull, tether yourself up, avoid being thrown clear!) For potential 'our team is here' information during an attack to avoid friendly fire, or for slapping onto one of those stealth attack cruisers for a nasty shock. Screamer Beacon - Taking a note from the Rovinar on this one. If we can carry a compact beacon or something to subvert a communications array/equipment on a ship, we hope to plant them on the stealth attack cruisers or the stolen ship. Beacon is silent until it is hit with a rarely used/jammed frequency, then it emits either a ping or a screams to be destroyed. Unless they're throwing their stealth ships into a melee, the ships are unlikely to be in enemy jamming or be emitting their own jamming/ECM (as it would allow the ship to be located via triangulation and general 'this area with nothing in it has jamming'). If we subvert an array, piggieback something detectable any time this ship communicates? Also allows us to beacon our own stolen vessel if needed. Slave Chips? - Not sure if Intel will ever admit to having any or how long/difficult they are to implant. Might be worth considering on any ranking Aries folks we manage to capture/secure. Erid IFFs - Might be funny if we can secure some of these. Can we steal some if we ghost a few guards? Recon Drug Kit 4000 - collection of injectables. Sedatives for high value captives that need to stay compliant and you can't afford to carry stasis units. Injectables to turn a guard you knocked out into 'oh shit, he had a seizure/stroke!'? Fun addatives to the mess hall 101. Anti-Engine Limpet Mine - Some external part of a Heavy Cruiser's engines must be vulnerable to a well-placed explosive while the engine isn't propelling the ship. Could allow a single recon armor to EVA and sabotage key engines (target say only the ones on the left side) and force the Baron's ship to delay launch. Or trust in Aries reliability with the remaining ones. (damage the ability to contain the fusion engine's ejected plasma, and it effectively shoots the ship if used?) THE RUST - Actually use that metal eating rust monster virus we picked up in deep space to fuck up ships. Home Security Mist Dispersal System Floods an area with mist or some type of powder. Invisible or not, anyone moving through that should be easily spotted. And since such a system is much cheaper than the latest in sensors, we can use it much more extensively throughout a facility. Maybe parts of the system could be set to activate in case of intruders. Category:Ships Category:Weapons Category:R&D